Category: Photography

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The Concert Master

The most frequently heard song in my garden in April is always the melodic song of the Clay-colored Thrush, called Yigüirro in Costa Rican Spanish. Local tradition is that he is singing in the rainy season, begging God for rain and thus he usually goes near the top of trees to sing and why my photos seldom show him singing. It sounds like he is trying really hard to do a good job and loud! As locals say, “singing his heart out!” You can hear one recording on eBird, click the “Listen” Button.

But they do come down to the lower limbs occasionally for my photos,  🙂  with these two shots from two different days. Usually we have a light start of rain the middle of April scattered over several days with the “real” rain beginning in earnest in May when we can have a shower or more every afternoon through November.

This year we had the unusual experience of 4 days of showers in March! Climate change! I live in the “Central Valley” which would not be considered a “rainforest” like both coasts and their corresponding “slopes” where it rains year around and occasionally all day. I like visiting the rainforests but the Central Valley is better for daily living.  🙂

Clay-colored Thrush, Yigüirro, Atenas, Costa Rica

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My Solo Hummingbird

This one Rufous-tailed Hummingbird appears to be the only one living in my gardens right now and occasionally he almost poses for a photo. I have not been putting out the Hummingbird feeder for a long time now because these Rufous-tailed Hummingbirds are very territorial and he chases any others off. But after next week’s trip I will have nearly 3 months of no travel and may try the feeder again, not to necessarily feed this guy but hope it attracts other hummingbirds. We will see!  🙂

Right now they depend on flowers alone for food! I guess that is more natural!   🙂  But in the past I had a lot more than this!

Rufous-tailed Hummingbird, Atenas, Costa Rica

¡Pura Vida!

And more in my Rufous-tailed Hummingbird GALLERY.

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A Brilliant New Photo Book

I just completed my latest photo book, the second one on Blurb’s “Lay Flat Pages” (no gutter) with 100# Premium Lustre Photo Paper containing 16 sunrise photos in my favorite sunrise place, 14 are two-page spreads! I made it for both the fun of creating and as a gift to the Hotel Banana Azul where all photos were made! There are now several hotels like this across Costa Rica that feature my photo books about them in their lobbies.  🙂  And by the way, this is one I think is worth taking advantage of my bookstore’s “Free Preview” electronically by clicking the cover image below or going to this address and just click the pages to turn them!  🙂

https://www.blurb.com/b/11529264-sunrise-banana-azul

CLICK cover image to go to a free electronic preview!

¡Pura Vida!

And by the way, that other “Lay Flat Book” was done way back in 2018 and titled Costa Rica Sunrises and Sunsets. It too is worth taking time for the “Free Preview” with mostly sunsets in that book! Just click that title to go there!

Costa Rica Weekly Video Recap

Brief bits of this last week’s news including 2 totally different rich and famous from the United States now living in Costa Rica!  🙂

Or maybe just read these written articles:

Preserve Planet Fights Against Costa Rica’s Plans to Build New Airport

Illegal Logging: The Critical Situation Threatening Costa Rica’s Environment

Costa Rica Expat Living: My Story of Being a Dependent (With an Unexpected Twist)  Story of a “dependent” (wife) of a legally working husband and how new law opened up legal work for her (which wasn’t allowed before). CR welcomes us retirees who bring our retirement income with us, but younger working adults who might compete with locals for jobs have many more hoops to jump through!  🙂  But from this story it seems to be getting easier!  And I am seeing a lot more working young adult expats, even in little Atenas now, though still most of them work on the internet which is non-competitive to local workers.

Everyone wants to live in Costa Rica now!  🙂

¡Pura Vida!

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English & Spanish Common Names + Latin Scientific

I’ve been working on all my wildlife galleries to have both English & Spanish Common Names as the titles and the Latin Scientific Name in the subtitles as I did first with birds. The one exception is that I cannot find a single easy source of Spanish Common Names for the butterflies & moths! So I’m still working on those, though they do all have both the English common name and the Latin scientific name. But still, I’ve seen no other wildlife photo galleries with this much helpful information.  🙂   I’ve completed the following categories except the Reptiles and Spanish on the butterflies, so almost finished!  🙂

CLICK above image to go to that “Other Wildlife” folder.

CLICK a Gallery Name below to see it:

¡Pura Vida!

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Small Endemic Bird – Spot-crowned Euphonia

This small bright blue & yellow bird landed for 30 seconds or so in my Yellow Bell Tree Wednesday and I managed to get a few shots before he left. He is the male Spot-crowned Euphonia  (eBird link), endemic to Costa Rica and the northern fringes of Panama, only on the Pacific Slopes, and just my third time to photograph one! First time in my garden!  🙂  My other places were at Esquinas Rainforest lodge at Piedras Blancas NP north of Golfito and at Hacienda Guachipelin, Rincón de la Vieja NP in Guanacaste near Liberia. I go back to Esquinas in July for my 83rd birthday and expect to see them again! 🙂

One of my all-time favorite bird photos was of a female Spot-crowned Euphonia eating a berry at Esquinas Lodge! See that and the other shots in my Spot-Crowned Euphonia Gallery! Now here’s 3 shots from my garden Wednesday . . .

Spot-crowned Euphonia, male, Atenas, Costa Rica

Above he’s looking down, next looking up and the third looking right into the camera before flying off!  🙂

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Great Crested Flycatcher

He landed in one of my Nance trees for only a few seconds and then flew away, never showing his face, which can help with ID! 🙂 But after a lot of research online and in my books I am pretty certain that this fellow is a Great Crested Flycatcher which we can have here as both immigrants from the north this time of year or non-breeding residents year-a-round. But this is my first time to see one here, though I saw one in the states in the past.

Great Crested Flycatcher, Atenas, Costa Rica

For the birders reading, notice the distinctive white wing-bars and the slight reddish-orange tinting on the lower edge of his wing. Only Great Crested, Brown and Ash-throated Flycatchers have both of those, eliminating the similar Yellow-bellied Elaenia, Dusky-capped Flycatcher and Northern Beardless Tyrannulet. Plus none of those have this bright a yellow belly or this dark of a brown crest which is also the two reasons I eliminate the  Brown and Ash-throated Flycatchers!

Sometimes bird ID becomes like scientific detective work!  🙂  But I’m pretty confident of this ID, even without a face shot which would have shown no eye ring and a slight bit of pink at the base of his bill.  Read about him on eBird. And you who live in the Eastern U.S. are possibly familiar with him as a common bird there, as shown on eBird’s map, and where I’ve seen him before.

¡Pura Vida!

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The “Brown is Cool” Butterflies

Three butterflies I got the other morning at the same time that are not new to me but I think handsome butterflies, The Tanna Longtail (normal sized) and the Rawson’s Metalmark (tiny fingernail sized), the same species I featured 6 days ago on March 22, and a Plain Longtail not much different from the first one above.

Tanna Longtail, Atenas, Costa Rica

Note that this Tanna Longtail is very similar to the Teleus Longtail (darker side spots, thinner median band) and the Brown Longtail (also with darker side spots) and thus my ID is not guaranteed but I’m pretty sure!  🙂

Rawson’s Metalmark, Atenas, Costa Rica
Plain Longtail Skipper, Atenas, Costa Rica

 

See my galleries of other shots of these two at:

¡Pura Vida!

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Gutter Iguana?

Well — he’s an immature Green Iguana “I think,” but the immature Black Iguana is also greenish, so he could technically be either one (though I think the face looks more like the green). But the last adult iguana I had here was the Black Spiny-tailed Iguana, so maybe that’s more likely.  🙂  Juveniles are difficult to ID for certain!

This one just happened to be in my casita’s gutter when I was on my morning garden walk the other day. I don’t see iguanas around my house very often, but when I do they often climb the trees to get away from me which makes it easy for a young one like this to jump over on the house roof. I doubt they find much to eat around my house which is why I seldom see one. A full-grown Iguana is more than twice the size of this one! (Green or Black)  🙂

Immature Iguana, Atenas, Costa Rica

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The Layered Mexican Yellow

It’s the layers of yellow, white and brown that identify this butterfly more than the spots and their locations which I tend to focus on first. 🙂  This butterfly photographed in my garden is the Mexican Yellow, Eurema mexicana. I’ve seen him before at Arenal Butterfly Conservatory and at Xandari Resort. See all those shots in my Mexican Yellow Gallery.

Mexican Yellow, Atenas, Alajuela, Costa Rica

And it looks different from other angles or light . . .

Continue reading “The Layered Mexican Yellow”

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Bird Galleries Like None Other

My Costa Rica Bird Galleries by Species have many helpful characteristics for birders or anyone interested in Costa Rica birds that no other online gallery has nor does any book other than maybe Aves de Costa Rica by Garrigues & Dean and it, like its English version is out of date with many incorrect bird names.

One example of 360 galleries. Note English, Spanish & Scientific Names!

My bird galleries have:

  • Photos of 360+ species of birds in Costa Rica arranged by taxonomy families as in the Princeton Field Guide: Birds of Central America, the most up-to-date birding book for Costa Rica at this time.
  • Up-to-date official English Names (constantly changing) based on the latest from eBird
  • Spanish Names as given in the only Spanish bird book for Costa Rica, Aves de Costa Rica. Note that these have not been changing like the English names and thus often parallel the old English names. PLUS I include the Otros nombres en español that are included in the above Spanish bird book since different regions of the country use different names.
  • The Latin Scientific Name of every bird has recently been added to my gallery of Costa Rica Birds.
  • And as I try to do with all my photos in all my galleries, I have included the specific location in which each bird was photographed. That can particularly help birders who are looking for a specific species they have not yet seen or photographed.
  • All of the above information is included on each photo in the galleries as Keywords making searches easier. 
  • Downloading photo files is free from any of my galleries. Just look for the downward pointing arrow below an enlarged image or use the old fashion way with a right click.
  • You can order quality prints or wall art on metal or canvas of any of the images you consider good enough for those purposes. I have some bad images just to show that a bird was seen in a particular place, but some of my images make great wall art and I personally prefer the ones printed on metal. This is a service of SmugMug Galleries with Bay Photos. This is not a source of income for me and thus my markup is only $1.
  • There is also a link at the top of every page to my Bookstore where you can find find my books of bird photos and many other Costa Rica subjects!

If you love the birds of Costa Rica, I hope you will find my photo galleries helpful to you in studying and learning the locations of these many birds!

Just one of the 360 galleries.

¡Pura Vida!